BRINO satisfies no-one. The Brexit wrangles are far from over

As the cabinet pores over Theresa May’s Brexit deal, where do we stand? Dimitri Zenghelis (LSE) says even if the deal passes ministers and Parliament, the uncertainty is far from over.

In my last post for LSE Brexit, I wrote:

“Looking ahead, the prospects are not encouraging. The ‘agreement’ at Chequers and subsequent ministerial resignations reflect the fact that the time for appeasing Eurosceptic conservatives with vague language, while postponing detailed outlines of a workable Brexit plan, has run out. The resignations reflected the inevitable acceptance that the UK is heading towards some form of ‘Brexit In Name Only’, whereby the UK is a de facto EU member, paying into the budget and subscribing to the rules, but without representation or influence. One of the few things Remainers and Leavers see eye-to-eye on is that this is deeply unsatisfactory. This makes it an inherently unstable position. Yet the alternatives of No Deal (or even a ‘Canada deal’) or remaining in the EU are, respectively, too costly—especially as the UK has made no preparations for it—or politically toxic in the absence of a mandate from a new referendum.”

To use the PM’s words: nothing has changed. The options for Brexit have always been internally contradictory or undesirable. They remain so. There is no stable equilibrium compromise. The Johnson brother resignations highlight this.

If a deal is agreed in cabinet today, the pound will rise, business – desperate for certainty and keen to avoid a cliff edge – will rally round the PM and the government will embark on a major spin operation to sell it widely. This might prompt people to think an agreement is within reach. Yet in trying to progress the deal the government will face an intractable problem. As we move from speculation about what the deal will look like to an actual detailed text available for scrutiny and debate, the government will have to convince Parliament and others that what is on offer is better than 1) what the UK has now or 2) better than far greater regulatory and sovereign independence in the form of a Canada plus style arrangement.

Most sensible people (and a few who fall outside this category) agree that the current compromise ‘Brexit in Name Only’ (BriNO) is the worst of all words (the term ‘vassalage’ is increasingly used by all sides). This fundamental shortcoming will hang over the government every time the agreement is debated. MPs will have to vote for something demonstrably worse than their preferred alternatives.

Where the parliamentary process will end up is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure, even if cabinet resignations are avoided today, the uncertainty is far from over. Everything remains on the table.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Brexit blog, nor the LSE.

8 Comments

Only those few who blind themselves to the catastrophic effects of crashing out of the EU with no arrangements for facilitating those industries dependent upon frictionless trade with the Continent and no transition period to adjust to the new situation could possibly say “the current compromise ‘Brexit in Name Only’ (BriNO) is the worst of all worlds”

For as long as a “people’s vote” with the option to remain in the EU is possible I will campaign for that. But if this option becomes clearly unavailable anything that avoids “no deal” must be pursued. “No deal” is unquestionably the worst of all worlds.

As a remote observer it strikes me that BrINO is the best of all possible outcomes.

BrINO (in contrast to no-deal and Canada+) limits economic damage to a minimum. In contrast to Remain, BrINO keeps the UK close to and dependent on the EU, and removes power from the highly unreliable British populace/parliament for a generation or so while they cure themselves of Empire nostlagia. It gives Scotland and Northern Ireland an opportunity to reverse centuries of English rule, with minimum damage. At the same time, it gives English Brexiters and Remainers something to be outraged about each day. BrINO guarantees full employment for the clowns in the British Media circus.

We thus end up in a situation that may be slightly sub-optimal for the English, but vastly better for the rest of us. BrINO is the greatest good of the greatest number …

Time is running out for political subterfuge as usual. For too long, parliamentary democracy has been a sham. The people who acquired political power through the ballot box have always had the notion, hardwired as it is in the system, that, as a tribe, politicians can virtually do as they please provided they spin and keep on spinning a yarn, any yarn, so as to justify what they are doing. No need for people to believe the yarn, or even the narrative given as a background by the back-up chorus of the msm and political writers.

New forms of subterfuge have to be invented, but a diminishing minority will be accepting of the new spin. In due course, more political commentators will come to their senses and look anew at EU policy and the British answer to it, covering perhaps the entire period from the first referendum under Heath.

Some stark facts will appear that were in plain sight all along. In recent times, the growth of anti-EU sentiment and UKIP, Cameron’s folly, from his point of view, and the lead-up to the Brexit referendum. Despite the huge effort by people who wished to see the result overturned, the facts are plain. The referendum was decided upon. The terms of reference and the wording was decided upon. This was done not in haste or with insouciance. There was a long period of debate. The question was clear. The answer was clear.

Cameron bolted and in comes May, promising Brexit. We all know what she said, kept saying and did. May wasted two good years in which the nation might have been prepared for sovereign independence. Instead, to save the business community the trouble of adjusting their operations, she fibbed and fobbed, went cap in hand to the EU Commissars and their delegates who were determined to make an example so as to discourage the others from considering a referendum.

For years, employees have been told to adjust, multiskill and cop it sweet when re-structuring requires their removal from their job, or loss of job altogether. The unemployed have been told to get on with it, take whatever work there may be, at the lowest pay, competing with desperates from poor countries who will take anything, do anything and put up with anything in order to gain permanent residency- Good for business.
Medicine for the geese, but not for the ganders, apparently. Methinks, big business in Europe has it coming to them. Some day, the easy money and tailored legislation, regulation and smooth sailing will be a thing of the past. Brexit means Brexit. It said so on the tin. The question was clear, so was the answer.
The British government, in July 2016, should have started preparing for independence day- as simple as that.

Except that the Brexiters in parliament made proper preparations for a no-deal scenario impossible. Ever since May handed in the notice to leave the EU, her hands were effectively tied as two years were not nearly long enough to negotiate anything else than what she came back with. The UK had no credible alternative once it triggered article 50. Proper preparations for that would have easily taken the more than five years given the usual timescale, cost overruns, missed deadlines, etc. of public projects of this magnitude (and that’s I think an optimistic scenario). Do you really think the right wing of the Conservatives had let May put of handing in the notice until after the next elections? Do you think voters that were promised a Brexit would have understood the complexity of the task and would have let the government properly prepare for Brexit, without punishing them at the next election? That’s I think highly doubtful. In fact, one could argue that ever since the UK signed the GFA Brexit was always preordained to play out more or less like it did.

Christoph, did you read my comment? I reject the scenario you have chosen as the proper and only way to proceed, and the lack of choice after ‘triggering’ article 50. Since Cameron did a runner, and May took it on, May should have done the decent thing for the country and prepare it and the government, the civil service and the people for independence, not go cap-in-hand begging for a favour from Brussels. Even before the referendum it was clear the EU powermongers were going to make it difficult, indeed, impossible if they could do so, for the UK to get out if the people voted Leave-an event which was not expected either by the Cameron government or the EU leadership.

Yes but maybe I misunderstood you? You are saying that the UK should have started preparing for no deal the day after the referendum, right?

The problem I see with that is that to be actually ready the UK would have needed much more time before triggering article 50 than was politically feasible. Once article 50 was triggered everything followed from there.

@Christoph. Yes, I’ve been thinking about this. Obviously, the then Cameron government never expected to “lose” the referendum. Cameron was never content to allow the country a free vote. As I said afterwards, the government should have taken a neutral position on the matter, beyond laying out the issues, the basic parameters and the consequences of the binary choice. Virtually the entire Establishment was, and is, in favour of the UK’s EU membership and the inevitable, as it then appeared, EU federalisation project.

As we know, both the government and most of the Establishment campaigned hard to convince people to vote remain. Most of the bureaucracy also put in their tuppence worth against Leave. This, imo, poisoned the referendum. It is one thing for the government to state its position as it lays out its case and warn of the, perhaps dire, consequences of voting against what the govment fairly, genuinely or otherwise believes to come to pass if people vote against what the govment deems wise. Cameron and the elites from everywhere went further. They played hard ball and thought they could easily prevent the people voting Leave. It looked a real surprise when it went Leave. They were not prepared, and they were not preppared to honour the result, despite all the noises they had been making and continued to put about, from May downwards the official line was Brexit means Brexit, not counting the remain dissenters in govment and the political arena.

The plan to fool the people must have been hatched at once, we now know. Honestly, in hindsight, how could one conclude otherwise. Were the Remainers in government mesmerised by the globalisation meme and the EU federalisation project to the degree they could not see what they were doing? No, they are not as daft as they appear to be cabbage-looking. The Remainers in government and the body politic UK are on the same wavelength as the EU apparatchiks and the wider globalisation thing- the nation-state, in the West at least, they are hell-bent on destroying. Democracy must go, and it is clear, many citizens in the West, even allowing for trolls and shills, appear to be convinced that democracy is dead, or ought to be.

So, Cameron did a runner and May the politburo bot took on the project to level Brexit back into some kind of Remain. The alternative scenario, that the May government were to and could negotiate a forward promise of a deal to be done after Brexit is really rather far-fetched. Surely, they could not be as stupid as that? Sure, everybody, almost, who has been interested in Brexit and followed what happened, has been infected and seemingly totally imbued with the notion that the UK should and could negotiate a deal while still tied to the apron strings of the EU Commissariat, or whoever really calls the shots there. Don’t tell us the .EU parliament socalled drives this project.

So, May put the UK in an impossible negotiating position. I think, on purpose. Brexit proper, the Establishment had already determined, was never going to happen. May was perhaps well-suited to take the UK out, had she wanted to, and, had she indeed wanted to, she would have had to think about how to do it, which was not on her list of things to do. So, it was a complete balls-up if they meant for Brexit to happen, but I think the fudged it on purpose. However much UK business hated it, they should have chosen to allow a proper negotiating position for the UK. Get out first, prepare the ground, let the EU come to you with proposals,etc.,etc, and come the day of freedom, the package to be offered to the EU should be ready, should have been ready. Two years have been wasted in that regard. However, now the people, here, there and everywhere, for evermore, know what duplicitous and mendaciously Machiavellian bar stewards most politicians really are.

Millennials voice their concerns about older generations deciding their future. They are right to be worried. If the Withdrawal Agreement passes through parliament, they will be locked into a treaty with no way to leave without the EU’s permission. Overturning the result of the referendum and remaining in the EU merely confirms the impossibility of leaving.

The country voted to leave, and in the interests of all generations, should be allowed to do so. Only then can future generations be afforded the same right to determine their relationship with the EU.

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